Somewhere, somehow
by Izumi1909
Summary: In another reality, the Hotakainens never got involved in the first Silent World expedition, but crossed paths with its crew a few years later. An intended snapshot of what the characters are up to one year after "Second chances", which ended up running a little long.
1. Beast problem

**Chapter 1: Beast problem**

Helena couldn't believe this had happened. She never thought that she would be hunting for beasts _in Mora_. What made her the sickest was how so many had gotten inside the Outer Mora walls in the first place: a handful of sheltered _adult_ non-immunes convinced that the Rash was a fabrication and an excuse to restrict their liberty of movement. They had spent months building a passage from someone's basement to a hidden spot of the nearby cleansed forest. From there, their plan had been to reach the non-cleansed part of the forest, on foot. That they only put themselves in danger, Helena would have been able to bear with. Unfortunately, they had been so confident that the Rash was one big hoax that they hadn't bothered to take any real measures to keep anything from getting inside the town via the passage, unaware of the damage even healthy vermin could do. Beasts, mostly vermin that had gotten past both scouts and cats, had found their way into the town. Helena was tired, but she had to check every single square meter of her assigned area. The beasts themselves, the immune humans and cats could take care of. Humans and animals that had been bitten, but where at a stage of infection that even Grade A cats couldn't detect yet while she could, were another story. It was only her and Lalli for all Outer Mora, doing it under cover of helping the local scouts that could be spared in patrolling the town. She and Lalli had been informed of the situation upon returning from the expedition to burn down that old slaughterhouse that had been gestating a giant for the last ninety-six years, which Helena had seen in a vision a few weeks ago. This had meant that there had been no way in the world that Reynir was _not_ going to spend the next two weeks in quarantine, especially in a country where most people didn't believe in magic.

She stopped in front of the house neither her nor Lalli had really wanted to have to inspect. She knew exactly what to expect in that one. Helena's aunt-in-law and Lalli's cousin, both non-immune, were in there. The children currently living in the house were all either at school or at work, but three of the four weren't immune either. Lalli was returning the favor by going to check on them. Helena knew it was ridiculous to treat Tuuri's life as being any more precious than Reynir's, Siv's, Håkan's, Sune's, Anna's or Sven's. Unfortunately, the knowledge that their reality existed only because Tuuri had died in the "real" one and someone had wanted to see what would have happened if she had lived made it difficult at times. Fortunately, Helena was powerful enough to check the entire house, its garden and its underground just from walking in front of it slowly enough. She let out a sigh of relief when nothing alarming showed up within the range of her senses. Helena knew the occupants of that house had made sure at least one of its rooms would be safe in such a situation, even during times where money was tight. She also knew both non-immunes inside it knew the Rash was both real and dangerous, unlike certain people she wouldn't name. Between this and the scan, she could now confidently mark it as "low risk" on her map. This was the lowest she could allow herself for a place that actually contained non-immunes and where the cat was the kitten that had been adopted after Bosse had passed from old age. Helena was moving to the next house when she saw a signal flare be fired from the part of town Lalli was taking care of. The color was the one agreed upon for when a non-immune had been found bitten in a place where there were other non-immunes. With Sven's help, she and Lalli had agreed to drop their inspections and run towards these flares to keep an eye out for anything that a mage-less Swedish team would miss. Actually, this was currently the only thing working in their favor: anyone stupid enough to pretend to not have been bitten or hide a non-immune loved one who had been would account only for the means of detection used in Sweden. They wouldn't prepare for a Norwegian or Finnish mage. Just as she was pondering whether to go there despite the fact it was actually on Lalli's side or not, she realized that it was coming from the school district.

Emil put the flare gun away and went back inside the classroom, hoping that he hadn't made a mistake in trusting Lalli's word. Unfortunately, Lalli reading a kid who was immune according to the class roll-call as non-immune hadn't been the only red flag. While Emil had been arguing with the teacher, Lalli had taken a look at the roll-call, elbowed Emil and pointed at the child's last name, which was identical to that of a married couple that was part of the group currently detained for endangering the entire Outer part of Mora. The boy looked a lot like the couple's male half, too. Someone from that group passing their non-immune child as immune wasn't that much of a stretch of imagination. But the main reason they needed to make sure was the infected mouse currently confined in a glass jar and the bite on the little boy's hand. The child was currently made to sit as far away from the other students as possible while still being inside the room. Emil realized that he may not be only child in a situation that needed Lalli's attention in the school and that a good use of their waiting time would be to have him visit other classes. But there were three things keeping both of them in the room. The first was that he was the only one in the room who could verbally translate for Lalli to an extent. The second was that isolating the kid was going to look completely arbitrary to the teacher until qualified testers showed up, and she could terminate the isolation it if they left. The third was more personal: Janine was one of the students and Sune was the teacher's assistant. Sune still looked like a younger, if no longer much shorter version of himself. Janine had run to him calling him "papa" upon his arrival; there was no use in pretending that he wasn't extremely reluctant to leave the room until the situation was sorted out. Janine was five and Sune not immune. Emil sighed and turned to Lalli:  
-Hey, can you check the rest of the school without leaving the room, by any chance?  
Emil could _feel_ the teacher's glare. Part of her job was teaching those kids that magic was a thing only religious people believed in. He and Helena had needed to be very careful before making Janine attend the Mora school and reach a compromise with the teacher that he was technically breaking just by asking Lalli if he could do the assignment he had given himself. As Lalli hadn't responded, he tried to ask the question in Finnish, but couldn't remember most of the words he wanted. He really wondered how Sven had been able to remember them all so quickly.

Lalli walked towards the class door and opened it to let a couple people in protection suits inside as they were about to knock. Emil heard a noise coming from the corner of the room in which in the bitten boy was sitting. The next instant, Lalli had grabbed the kid by his shirt and kept him from running out of the room before the door was closed. If the boy turned out to be immune after all, Emil was going to suggest he join the scouts. He introduced himself and Lalli to the newcomers properly, asked if they had any quick immunity test kits and pointed to the child Lalli was still holding:  
-You need to test him, _now_.  
They pricked the boy's finger and ran the blood drop through the kit:  
-Not immune.  
Emil gave them the roll call, and pointed to the kid's name, which had his official immunity status on it, on the "off-chance" it became relevant. The people in protection suits both uttered baffled "how" at the same time. Emil explained the situation and the implications he had thought of so far. One of the people in protection suits sighed:  
-We are going to need more people for this.

-Mama!  
-There you are! Wait, where's Sune?  
-Bitten non-immune in the class, they only sent the immunes home.  
Tuuri's eye twitched a little. She had _just_ managed to convince Onni that she was at absolutely no risk of contracting the Rash despite the fact that the entire Outer part of Mora was going to be in quarantine for couple of weeks because of a beast infiltration, on the basis that no infected animals had come anywhere close to the house in which she was staying. She hadn't realized just how loudly Helena and Emil could speak before this, and she was quite sure Onni had heard at least some of it through the radio.  
-A bitten non-immune in who's class?  
Tuuri's guess turned out to be right. She let out a sigh:  
-Emil's non-immune cousin _who stayed at the school_ is the teacher's assistant in Emil and Helena's _immune daughter's_ class. Lalli was the one checking the school district for things the Swedish army and their cats could have missed and Emil was with him, so I guess they were in that class at some point and…  
Her mind finally clicked onto the fact that while this meant she was safe, it meant that Sune wasn't. She had been hoping none of the non-immune members of the household would be at risk. She hadn't so far payed attention to the fact that they didn't have any news of Håkan and Anna either, but now she was suddenly worried, and realized that their family members were probably more so.  
-Onni, some people may need to use the town's radio system more than we do right now. You're the one who called, what did you want to tell me?  
Tuuri hear the sound characteristic of someone else grabbing the radio's microphone on the other side:  
-Let's just say that in a few months, Onni may finally start leaving you and Lalli in peace.  
Tuuri recognized the voice of Cecilia, Onni's wife.  
-You're pregnant?  
-Yes.  
She congratulated them, checked whether Lalli had actually come back with Emil and Janine or not, told him the news and made him come to the radio to talk to Onni and Cecilia. But while he was doing so, Tuuri couldn't help thinking of the conversation she and Reynir had had recently. They had been weighing the pros of the cons of using the Dagrenning program to have an immune child before that call from Helena that had boiled down to "We're all going on an expedition to kill a giant, want to come?". The day's events had given a lot of weight to the main pro, which made her think of the cons. One of them was that she would have to marry Reynir to take part in the program and she didn't feel ready to do so quite yet. The second was an offshoot from one of pros: the program accepted private use of donations from immune family members under certain conditions, and Lalli was showing absolutely no interest in the things one needed to be interested in to start family. She really wanted to ask him, but had no idea how to breach the subject, feared how much she would have to explain to make him understand what she wanted from him and knew it was something too important to have someone else ask in her stead.

They spent dinner eating in silence, listening to the radio as the rules to follow during the quarantine were announced and explained in loops, only to be interrupted when news came in. Many of the measures translated to Håkan, Sune and Anna all having to stay wherever they had been when the intrusion of the beasts had been discovered. Finally, someone at the table spoke:  
-What is immune?  
The radio had spent the evening saying what both immunes and non-immunes could and couldn't do. Between this and what had happened in her class, of course Janine would wonder. Emil had had to take her home while leaving Sune behind just a few hours earlier. The least Helena could do was share the burden:  
-Do you remember the strange mouse from today? It's very sick and it can make some people very sick also if it bites them. But some people never get sick if strange mice bite them. We call those people immune.  
Janine stayed silent a few moments before asking the question Helena dreaded:  
-Kevin is sick?  
Kevin was the fake immune from her class.  
-We don't know yet. Not immune means it can both happen and not happen. But we need to wait a few days to know if he will be sick or not. Do you understand so far?  
Janine nodded.  
-Why did Sune stay at school? The mouse didn't bite him.  
-There were many sick animals in town today. Someone… left a door open and they got in from outside. One of them could bite Sune while he's walking home. This is why Håkan and Anna aren't home either.  
-Can I get sick? And you? And papa?  
-Neither of us can. All three of us are immune. But Tuuri and Siv can get sick, so it's important to not have the windows or doors open longer that we need, okay?  
-Okay.  
Helena looked at the time, realized that Janine's bedtime was coming close, and decided to take her to the bathroom to get washed up while it was still free. She picked her up and hugged her a little harder than usual. Janine's hands were clutching her quite hard, as well. She really, really didn't want to be the parents of any of the children who had to stay at the school tonight. She gave Torbjörn, Siv and Emil a glance as she left the room.

Lalli apparently took Helena and Janine's departure from the table as a sign he could leave also. Tuuri followed him into the living room:  
-So, how was it out there?  
-A lot of old buildings on the way to the giant. I used a strong spell to help kill the giant, so I slept all the way back.  
-How did you like going on a mission with Emil?  
-He's good at his work and not too noisy, but his Finnish is bad. Sven started learning after him and he was much better at it.  
Tuuri took a few moments to process what Lalli had just said:  
-Why in the world would _Sven_ learn Finnish? He's a Swedish academic, he doesn't exactly need it.  
-Something about going to hide in a village in Finland if he needs to.

Helena, Emil and Reynir had all been quite vague about the event that had made Sven end up part of the first Silent World expedition. Reynir didn't know much simply because Sven never interacted with him unless he had to. From the two others, Tuuri had only found out that Sven had very badly chosen the time and thing to nitpick at the job he had before the expedition, the people who had suffered the consequences lived in Mora, he timed his errands as to not risk running into them and Tuuri was'nt supposed to bring the event up. The event being bad enough that Sven didn't want to run into the people he'd wronged if he could help it, she could understand. She'd spent years feeling that way about Lalli before finding out he hadn't been quite himself when he had thrown their expedition paperwork in the river going through Keuruu. But could it really be bad enough that Sven would potentially need to run away to Finland? She had managed to get on his good side by helping him make breakfast once, but had otherwise found no common ground with him despite their similar jobs. She had always seen the paper-pushing part of the job as the price to pay to be able to enjoy all the knowledge found in books. Sven seemed to be the complete opposite, to the point that the fact that he no longer could do paper-pushing jobs – she wasn't sure whether the restriction was imposed by the Swedish skald community or Sven to himself – managed to come across as a little sad. Between the fact that he had already survived the Silent World once and what some knew to have happened to her in the other world, Sven had been the one going back out there with the crew, while she manned the radio in home base. Now that she thought of it, she wasn't sure why they had needed a skald for that trip. The first expedition had officially been, for all intents and purposes, a skald, a medic and their escort. The second one had been to burn a literal sleeping giant to crisp before it woke up and decided Mora looked like a good breakfast. Sigrun was an experienced troll hunter. Mikkel had a set of skills that would otherwise require to hire at least three other people. The usefulness of Lalli, Reynir, Helena and Emil was self-evident. The financing had been better this time around, but not _that_ much better.

She might as well ask:  
-What was Sven doing on the expedition anyway?  
-Making food I liked and throwing a blanket on me if I stopped moving for too long. I saw him use the typewriter in the office once or twice, but I didn't ask him what he was doing.  
Tuuri couldn't help but chuckle. During Reynir and Helena's dream area troubles, Tuuri had accompanied them and Janine to central Saimaa for the purposes of their research. Lalli's description of Sven's attitude reminded her of how Helena had described Emil's during the first expedition. Tuuri briefly considered the reason could be the same, before remembering that if she knew someone who seemed less interested in romantic matters than Lalli, it was probably Sven. This, fortunately, helped redirect her mind towards the question she had initially set out to ask:  
-Lalli, you know how babies are made, right?  
-Yes.  
So far, so good.  
-You know specific things are actually needed, right? Do seed and egg sound familiar to you?  
-Yes.  
She explained the Dagrenning program as simply as she could, then popped the question. Lalli stared at her for a few moments, then darted upstairs to the guest room. Tuuri wasn't sure how she was supposed to understand this, but at least it wasn't an outright "no".


	2. Quarantine

**Chapter 2: Quarantine**

-I guess that if I was facing such a choice, I'd be leaning towards the option that would let me have immune children also after what happened today. But I also see you point, though it may be hard to convince Tuuri that it's an actual drawback. And neither Emil nor I are exactly in the position to argue against immune children.  
Helena, even though she didn't come from a place with few immunes, knew that if you were both immune and a mage, the line between "you can go out there and fight the trolls" and "you _have_ to go out there and fight the trolls" was very blurry, if it existed at all. Being non-immune, Tuuri had been told all her life that the main danger of the Silent World was the Rash and next to nothing about the dangers that existed whether one was immune or not. Helena and Reynir had both lost an arm on the first Silent World expedition, but that had been the result of an untried powerful rune and the pair's propensity to produce first tries that caught fire. Even those arms had been replaced by well-made fake ones. The stories told by Reynir about his siblings and his own adventure in the Silent World had failed to make Tuuri understand as well. Helena twirled one of her many brown braids around her finger, which indicated she was pondering. Why did she bother with so many? She'd been wearing only a single one when Lalli had first met her almost a year ago, when her dream area and Reynir's were one thanks to the very rune that had cost them their respective arms. She and Emil always got at least one of them undone each time they did anything remotely intimate. Sven had noticed this also, and Lalli had taken to see if he spotted the same number of undone braids as him after any period of time during which Emil and Helena had been left alone with each other. Living them alone with Reynir had turned out to be just as bad, as he had lived with them for several years and hence no longer registered as an intruding presence to them. The braid twirling stopped:  
-Hey, I've got it! Did you ever see Sigrun's left arm?  
Lalli nodded. It was covered in scars and she sometimes had trouble moving it despite the fact that both Mikkel and Helena had been able to care for the wound soon after it had been incurred. Tuuri had only ever spoken to Sigrun over the radio, so she'd had no opportunity to see it. Sven had explained to him that it had been the arm or Reynir, and that Reynir himself had very narrowly avoided being scratched, "actually got a small bruise on his arm" narrowly to be precise. Unfortunately, nobody had seen any reason to put Sven in the loop about the other world, not even via the cover-up story of a hermit mage who'd lost an extremely bookish younger sister several years ago and had messed up a scrying spell in a way that had created a permanent link between him and Lalli. Because of this, Sven had no idea that each time he told Lalli about something that happened on the first expedition, Lalli couldn't help wondering if something similar had happened in the other world and if it had been a factor in the other Tuuri ultimately getting bitten by a troll. His other self had a policy of not telling him too much, but had quickly admitted to a few situations that Lalli had guessed on his own. It had been a little hard to miss the fact that he was married, for instance. Lalli realized he hadn't answered Helena yet:  
-What about Sigrun's arm?  
-I thought we could have a little get-together between Tuuri, Sigrun and Mikkel, while making sure this will come up in conversation before it happens. Do you think it could work?  
-I don't know, but it sounds worth trying.  
-Great, I'll try to set things up so they can see each other after the quarantine. Anything else?  
Lalli opened his mouth, but changed his mind. He wasn't sure whether Helena was the best or the worse person to ask the other question he had. He'd come to her about Tuuri's request only because his alternatives were Tuuri's own boyfriend and a pair of parents-to-be who had no choice but to be ready for both.

-If Sven broke his glasses in a remote village in Finland, would he be able to get them repaired?  
Tuuri took a little time to answer. She probably hadn't realized he was awake, since he hadn't moved from under her bed.  
-I don't think so, unless magic could help with that. And since his glasses are made in Sweden, I would really not advise him to move anywhere else than central Saimaa or Keuruu if he ever actually needs to go hide in Finland.  
Keuruu was part of Sven's better options, then. A few moments later, Lalli gave himself a little slap on the temple. Why in the world did want Sven to move to Finland so much that he was actually wishing for whatever he could potentially need to run away from to become bad enough to make him leave Mora? Sweden was Sven's country, not Finland. Maybe he should have asked Helena, after all. Advice on where to go _if_ he ever needed to would be enough.

Due to the town-wide quarantine, even immunes weren't supposed to go out without a good reason, to limit the opportunities for any yet-to-be caught beasts or incubating animals to get inside houses in which non-immunes lived. While all extra manpower had been welcome on the first day, both he and Helena had been told that the Swedish scouts and cats could handle things without them. Four days in, Lalli was so restless that he was seriously considering paying the other world a visit so he could have a jog outside in his other self's body. It was five years later there, so Mora wouldn't be in a town-wide quarantine, at least. He'd already come up with the perfect reason to go there: asking his other self for his opinion about Tuuri's request. The main reason he was hesitating was that Onni's sole visit to the other world and his discovery of Tuuri's fate there had left such a mess that the other Emil had figured out something both strange and magic-related was going on, eventually leading the other world's Onni to visit this one. There had been no visits from the other world since the other Onni had left, but his other self's absence hadn't become unusual quite yet. Lalli would only worry if he didn't start getting blackouts of a few minutes at a time a few weeks before Tuuri's birthday due his other self collecting materials, longer ones as he worked on the present and an even longer one on the evening of the birthday party Tuuri shared with another member of the base who was otherwise a complete stranger to him. Asking for his other self's help to fix Helena and Reynir's dream area situation had created an exception to the pattern and had gotten them discovered by both Onnis. Lalli jerked as he realized that there were less than two months left before Tuuri's twenty-seventh birthday _right now_. It wasn't quite close enough for his other self's lack of intrusion to be unusual, as he had once managed to cram both the material gathering and the crafting of one of his gifts into a couple of weeks. But that meant he had to figure out his own gift, now that Tuuri knew that there were basically two of him. There were probably some materials he could use somewhere in the house. He'd seen Janine drawing at some point the previous day, so there must be at least some paper and pencils he could use.

Someone opened the upstairs linen closet in which Lalli and the family kitten had taken refuge. It was Emil's uncle, who very obviously didn't expect to find him there. Lalli moved, in case he happened to be sitting on what Emil's uncle wanted to take out. The dreaded phone rang yet again. Helena picked up, yelled the same thing as usual in Norwegian and loudly hung up. Tuuri had told him there was a way to unplug it, but they didn't in case Emil's cousins called to give news, as they all had access to phones. As for the reason it was ringing so often, it had to do with his discovery of that boy's non-immunity and people with no idea of what mages were wanting to ask questions. The second she had seen what effect the phone's regular rings had on Lalli, Tuuri had told him to just find a place inside the house where the noise didn't disturb him too much, but show up for meals. The calls had kept him from getting a good day's sleep, so he got most of his sleep at night, when most people were doing the same. As Emil's uncle put a couple items in the closet and the kitten decided they would make a good bed, there was another phone ring. This time, Helena stopped half-way through her usual speech, and started talking with a voice that was so much softer that Lalli would have had trouble making out the words even if his wasn't trying to understand Norwegian with less than a year's worth of Tuuri's Swedish lessons. Helena spoke long enough for Lalli to figure out the caller was unlikely to be any of Emil's cousins, as she didn't call any other member of the family. The call had however been enough of a curiosity that Emil's uncle had started to slowly move towards, then down the stairs. As it continued, Lalli somehow managed to circle around the inconveniently placed sleeping kitten and get out of the linen closet. He had made his way to the top of the stairs by the time Helena hung up and called the names of everybody in the house, safe for the kitten. Once Lalli was downstairs, she told everyone something as if on the verge of tears, in which the only word he was able to make out was the name "Kevin". The second she finished her sentence, she picked up her daughter and squeezed her, while Emil put his arms around both of them. Tuuri, along with Emil's aunt and uncle, all looked like they had gotten unpleasant news. A few moments later, Tuuri finally came around making sure Lalli knew what was going on and told him the child that had gotten bitten had started showing symptoms of the Rash. He took a deep breath and got ready to be hugged if it ended up being what she needed. He could understand that she didn't want to go through something like that with children of her own. But he had at some point acquired the knowledge that Mora had come close to _sixty years_ without an outbreak. Non-immunes had probably died of old age in there. While those outbreaks in Saimaa had killed people of all ages, they had done their job keeping their non-immunes safe up to that point. Iceland was even safer than both Saimaa and Mora. People were working on a Rash cure in both Iceland and Sweden, and had gotten a lot of help in their work from the unfinished cure the first Silent World expedition had brought back. Lalli knew of immunes who had died on the job before reaching twenty. That meeting between Tuuri and Sigrun couldn't happen soon enough.

Upon opening his eyes, Lalli was welcomed by a partly moonlit bedroom and a few hints of the other Emil's face.  
-Known mine for a while now. Still don't get why you married yours.  
He got out of bed, put the robe on and turned the light on in the other, larger room that served four different functions that included being his other self's study. He quickly found the notepad he usually used to leave messages to his other self in a desk drawer. There was already something written on it: "New rule from Onni. You need to write in the red book if you need to tell me something. Both in Finnish and Swedish if you can. Yes, it's so Emil can know what is happening. But he knows some things I don't, so it may help someday." There was indeed a very nice-looking red book on the desk, which turned out to have blank pages when Lalli went through it. He gave some family news, mentioned the beast intrusion, mentioned the unusual circumstances any plans for Tuuri's present would have to account for and Tuuri's request. He closed the book and went back into the bed. He'd already woken the other Emil once while doing this, and he didn't intend to have it happen again, especially now that he knew enough to be keeping an eye on their exchanges.

Emil finished tying Janine's braids into loops. He'd tried the same hairstyle on Helena, but both of them had needed to face the fact that anything that wasn't the Norwegian-style multiple simple braids looked strange on her. Even when that strange magic phenomenon had caused her tastes and Reynir's to become closer than they had been beforehand, he had never quite gotten used to her imitation of Reynir's hairstyle. But looking like they were only half trying to look their best would defeat the reason they were doing this. After finding out the cause of the beast intrusion, some genius in the government offices had decided that every single resident and visitor of Mora had to get a good look at Kevin to be shown that yes, the Rash was real and the measure taken to protect the non-immune were necessary. From what Emil and Helena had gathered, they were basically getting away with using the child as an exhibit because his parents were detained. They had tried to do something about it, but their input was brushed off on the basis that they were immune and had no idea how necessary it was to keep such a situation from repeating. But he and Helena had realized that it wasn't only the non-immunes that would have to go see him, and that the fact they were treating the little boy as a mere exhibit didn't mean _they_ had to do the same. So, they were going to visit him dressed as if they had been invited at his birthday party.

While in the line that had formed outside the quarantine facility, Emil couldn't help looking at Tuuri and Lalli's outfits and being impressed at what they had managed in spite of not having packed any dress clothes. Tuuri in particular had had an extra motivation to dress well. After the "viewing", they would pick up Reynir and Sven, who were getting out of quarantine that day, and go out to lunch with Sigrun and Mikkel. Lalli, who was right in front of him, cleaned up quite nicely. Lalli had come on the giant-killing expedition because Helena had determined that even with Emil and Reynir coming in addition to herself, they would need an extra mage or an extra cleanser to do the job properly. Lalli had shown interest. Emil had gone in expecting to be his translator, as the long hospital stay in Finland during which he had initially befriended Lalli had given him no choice but to learn some Finnish. Sven had shown up with a better mastery of Finnish than his own and become a more practical translator. Sven had ended up doing all tasks necessary to make Lalli comfortable short of the ones that required an immune person, which was when Emil took over and got to spend a little time with him. In the end, Emil had been happy to let Sven care for Lalli most of the time, especially on the way back, where Lalli's coma had caused Helena to fall back into her triple shifting habits from the first expedition; that work ethic in resulted in needing to persuade her to go to bed because adrenaline was keeping her from realizing how tired she was. Emil really hoped that Lalli would find someone who would make him as happy as Helena was making him. The odds were unfortunately against Lalli, between his hard to approach personality and him having admitted to only being interested in dating men if he ended up dating at all.

As the line got closer to the room in which Kevin was being kept, Emil realized that the mouse beast was in a guarded triple-layered transparent plastic cage, on display right outside the quarantine room's window. Whoever got to look into the room also got access to an interphone, but the device apparently had its own guard. Emil hoped it was to keep people from breaking it or using it to tell the kid inappropriate words, rather than some other motivation coming from those who had had this idea in the first place. He saw Lalli take a deep breath while Tuuri was convincing the guard to let her and Lalli to see Kevin at the same time despite both of them being adults. Emil patted his shoulder:  
-You can do it.  
Janine was the one who would carry out his and Helena's idea, but Tuuri had volunteered herself and Lalli to go in right before them and catch Kevin's attention in case too many of the previous "visits" had gone as bad as they feared. All they had to do is greet him and thank him with a smile on their faces, but it was harder than it sounded for Lalli; Emil had figured out that he kept that quasi-expressionless face in part because the alternative was showing how he was currently feeling, which carried the risk of being different from what those around him were expecting. Lalli managed to pull it off. Smiles suited him well. Next came Emil and Helena, each holding Janine by one hand. After greeting Kevin, they let Janine list all the non-immunes of the classroom who hadn't gotten bitten (and gotten out of quarantine without a single symptom) because Kevin had caught the mouse and put it in the glass jar. From a little snooping during the quarantine, Helena had found out that the teacher had come up with a plan upon seeing the mouse in her classroom: have Sune and the non-immune students climb on the furniture, while she and the immune students played a game of catch-the-mouse. It would have had the merit of working, if the immunity of the child that had ended up catching the mouse hadn't been a lie. But Kevin had caught the beast, nonetheless. They hoped that getting reminded that he had kept the other non-immunes in the class from ending up in his situation would make anything else the rest of the town could throw at him easier to handle.


	3. New friend

**Chapter 3: New friend**

The squeal of enthusiasm that Tuuri let out was so high-pitched that Lalli had to cover his ears and noticed Sven was doing the same. What was the big deal anyway? She had already spoken to both Sigrun and Mikkel through the radio. He took his hands off his ears just in time to hear Tuuri be impressed about how much taller than Reynir they were. Sigrun decided that this was the right time to show Tuuri her arm and explain how it had happened. Mikkel took part in the conversation between Sigrun and Tuuri, while Reynir made a face at the sight of the arm and decided to go talk with Emil, Helena and Janine instead. Lalli suddenly realized that one of the members of the expedition was missing in his headcount, and tentatively looked in Sven's general direction. Sven had just made the great mistake of sitting down without obstructing his lap in any way, and the gwhite-and-ginger creature in a Grade B cat collar had taken advantage of it. Sven would now be unable to move a muscle:  
-Get it off…  
Lalli sighed, took the animal, put it next to Janine and came to sit next to Sven.  
-Why were you on this expedition? Tuuri asked and I couldn't answer.  
-There are people curious about mages here. I found this out recently. They have money to give people who want to study mages, but can't find people who want to. For too many people here, magic is not real, so it's not a bad thing to say they are going to study mages, take the money and use it for other things. Because of this, they want the people who want the money to show they are really going to study mages. So, I came to watch you, Helena and her idiot student. If they like it, I can get money for going to hide in Finland if I go to a place that has mages.  
A thought suddenly occurred to Lalli. How had he not noticed when Sven had first told him or when he had told Tuuri about it?  
-Why are you thinking of hiding in Finland now? The reason you are hiding happened six years ago.  
Sven clenched his fists and stared at his own lap:  
-The man who died from my mistake had a younger sister. I'm sure her parents didn't tell her the real reason when it happened. She's grown up now. She's also in the same class as Anna. She's old enough to be told what happened now. If she finds out I live in Anna's house, I… don't know what may happen. I don't want any of the kids to have to leave a training they like because of me.  
Once he was done, Sven collapsed in his chair, suddenly looking very tired and blew a little air out of his lungs. Lalli hovered over him:  
-Are you all right?  
-Yes, I just need a few minutes.  
Somehow, he and Sven had ended up sharing their stories of being responsible for the death of others because of paperwork-related mistakes during the trip to the old slaughterhouse. It had been an improperly filled out report for Lalli. For Sven, it had been delaying an urgent care facility transfer over a missing letter in the patient's long name as per his usual standard for properly filled out papers, while not realizing that this particular one had literally gone through all the unlucky delays possible before landing on his desk. The delay he had added to the procedure had made the difference on whether a man's life could be saved or not. Because all the other delays had been complete accidents and Sven had technically chosen to add his own, he was considered responsible for the man's death by his family, even though he'd never been formally punished for it in any way. That hadn't kept Sven for feeling guilty about it, and having no idea of how to properly do the only job he'd ever had anymore.

Sven had showed Lalli a trick to get edible food at the "nice place" where they had all eaten. While each pair of adults had been given one of those very thin books, Janine had been given a single card. Once she had chosen her food, Sven had asked her for the card, and told Lalli what their options were. Their food and Janine's had been much simpler, but what everyone else had been eating had looked just plain gross anyway. They had also finished their meal quickly, payed for their food and left the restaurant while everyone else was distracted. Sven had then told him he wanted to buy a kantele and needed Lalli's help make sure he got the best one he could afford. After that, Sven had taken him to a place that had benches and a handful of currently-leafless trees. Lalli had settled on the lower branch of one of them, while Sven seemed to be trying to play a few tunes that were definitely not of Finnish origin on his new kantele. It took a few moments for him to figure out how to play the instrument correctly, but once he had, he was doing very good for someone who had just started. Now he remembered why he wanted Sven to move to Finland, and preferably to Keuruu, so much. While Emil didn't force him to engage in things like others did, there still needed to be something to keep Emil occupied, even if it was just talking to Lalli without really expecting an answer. Sven liked the peace and quiet as much as he did, and never broke it without an obvious purpose.

Lalli noticed two young women coming to sit on one of the nearby benches, holding wrapped food that was probably their lunch. He took a few moments to realize one of them was the girl among Emil's noisy cousins after not having seen her face for several weeks. His memory managed to summon the name "Anna". Both her and her friend seemed to like the music. When Anna noticed it was Sven playing it, she almost yelled his name, looking at him wide-eyed. Sven immediately stopped playing, and greeted them in his usual formal tone. Both young women came to sit on the bench Sven had been using, without seeming to notice Lalli, who didn't mind, but made an effort to listen to the conversation because Tuuri had told him it was a good way to learn how to speak a language faster. From what he could tell, Anna's friend was the younger sister of the man he and Sven had been talking about earlier. Lalli didn't catch her name. Next, the younger sister seemed to be mad at Sven for enjoying himself after what he had done. Sven went on to start a discussion with her about whether what he had happened should keep him from being happy forever or not. Lalli didn't follow everything, but Sven at some point mentioned that he was having his first good day in several years and it was just bad timing that she should see him enjoying himself with a friend rather than doing whatever she thought he should be doing instead. When the young woman asked who was the friend he was talking about, Sven pointed at Lalli. Lalli was startled for a few moments, then put his mind to work. He guessed that if he and Emil could call each other friends, he and Sven qualified for the title as well. Both Anna and her own friend showed surprise upon noticing him. Anna admonished Sven for not pointing Lalli out earlier, while Sven replied that it was their own fault that they hadn't noticed Lalli earlier. Just as Anna's friend was pointing out that Lalli was in a tree, a bell tower rang, prompting both young women to say something about school, quickly finish what was left of their food and leave. Sven suggested to Lalli that they head home also, because at least one person among the others was probably going to start a town-wide search for them if they weren't at the house by the time they returned. Lalli jumped from the tree branch and decided to make sure of something before they left:  
-Do you really consider me your friend? he asked in Finnish.  
-You understood that part. I wasn't sure you had. Yes, I do. I can stop if you don't like it.  
-I don't mind.

On the way back to the house, Lalli told Sven about what Tuuri had asked him for.  
-Are you aware it could not work? You Finns have a weird immunity distribution in families. The Dagrenning program doesn't have Finnish donors because of this. If they really want an immune child, they should use one of the idiot student's siblings and an approved donor.  
Lalli actually knew that, but not from Tuuri. He'd gotten an answer from his other self while waiting out the quarantine. He had explained the Finland immunity situation in detail. He had added that "some Swede" was going figure out the reason behind it soon and that there was going to be a test enabling one to distinguish "Dagrenning compatible" Finns from the others by Year 98. His other self had taken it out of curiosity and it had come back positive. But Lalli couldn't tell Sven that. Fortunately, Sven didn't seem to expect an immediate answer, which let him figure out what he would be saying if he didn't know:  
-No. Why did she ask me if it may not work?  
-Maybe she expects her and the idiot student to be lucky. Maybe she really wants it to be you and doesn't really care about the child's immunity.  
The first option actually wouldn't have been that out of character from Tuuri. Barring the period around her breakdown and her early recovery from it, she tended to expect the better possible outcomes from events.  
-What's the point of using my seed if it's not to be sure to be sure the child is immune?  
-It doesn't look like you're going to have kids the usual way right now.  
-She already told me that. And even if I get with someone, it will probably be a man, so she's right about that.  
-Interested in men also? I thought Emil would be the only other one I would ever meet. There is very few of us and I don't know many people well enough to know things like that. Getting back to what we were talking about, it would be good if it is your child. Even if it's not immune, at least, it will not be the idiot student's child.  
-What would be so bad about the child being Reynir's? I think he's annoying too, but not enough to think he shouldn't have his own child if he's okay with it not being immune.  
Sven sighed:  
-Sorry about that. My parents… have very strict ideas of who should be allowed to have children, even among the non-immune. Each time they don't like someone, they say that their parents shouldn't have had them or that they should be made unable to have children. Things like that. I thought it was normal when I was a kid. I only found out it was very, very, mean to say this to and about people after I left home. I still say them sometimes, even if I don't really want to. But I do think the world could use more of you more than it could use more of Helena's idiot student.  
Lalli had been so focused on processing what Sven had been telling him that he didn't notice they had arrived at the house. The second they got in, Sven told him to take his boots off to not get the floor dirty and quickly found enough to do to keep himself occupied until the others returned.

At dinnertime, the good mood in which Lalli and Sven had left the others at lunch had vanished. Siv, Emil's aunt, had made her announcement in Swedish upon returning from work so late they hadn't waited for her to eat, but the rest of the conversation had happened in Icelandic. Helena had wanted Janine out of the room the second the conversation had started, and it had fallen upon Emil to have her finish her meal in another room and get her ready for bed. Lalli who couldn't speak Icelandic and would only find out about the finer details in the dreamspace from Helena and Reynir later, helped him as he could. He had understood the Rash-stricken boy's name and the word "medicine" in Siv's statement. From the latest news from the two foreign mages of the subject, Lalli could guess the reason they had started a tense discussion. Neither the Icelanders nor the Swedes had managed to change the recipe in a way that didn't cause patients turn into strange ghosts yet. For the past six years, when neither Helena nor Reynir were in Mora, there always "just happened" to be an Icelandic or Norwegian mage in town because of this.

Emil decided to stay at his daughter's bedside long after she had fallen asleep. A question crossed Lalli's mind:  
-Is she going to fight trolls when she's older?  
-If she wants to. Granted that her chances of going into farming in this family are slim, but she may take after me and go into academia.  
Emil fancied himself as a brainy person who had _chosen_ to join the army because he didn't get along with other brainy people. For someone like that, he showed little interest in books. He claimed that it was because all the good books were in Icelandic, yet that didn't seem to bother him enough for him to start learning the language. Even Swedish books, Lalli had only seen in his hands when he was reading his daughter stories. Tuuri and Sven, on the other hand, seemed to be unable to live without reading or writing something on a regular basis. His other world self seemed to have plenty of books too, for that matter. This reminded him that he had agreed to let his other self take the next morning to visit a couple locations in Mora's shopping district. Lalli decided to give Emil what he called his "you can't fool me" look. Janine could turn out to be like Tuuri and Sven, but it would definitely not be due to taking after Emil.  
-Anna told me she saw you and Sven in the park today. Wasn't too boring hanging out with him?  
-No. It was nice, actually.  
Emil raised an eyebrow:  
-Really? He hates hanging around with other people about as much as you d… Wait… the two of you hate the same things… does it mean you like the same things as well?  
Lalli was about to call Emil's reasoning stupid before he realized that all of the day's pleasant activities had been entirely Sven's idea. He'd gone along with the idea of befriending Emil in part because he had given up on ever meeting someone who actually enjoyed the same things as him.  
-Maybe.  
-Anna also told me she saw him play music and that he was good. I sometimes hear him humming while he's working, but I didn't know he could play. Too bad it's always the same song, though.  
-Why would he play anything else? It's a nice song.  
-I guess you're right. But hearing it too often can get annoying, sometimes.

Lalli got a sudden and grim reminder that Janine was actually sleeping in a cot in the room belonging to the three noisy cousins when the Emil copycat among them walked into the room in tears, let himself drop onto one of the beds and was soon followed by his siblings. They hadn't really made that much noise, but the little girl had inherited her mother's perception of any possible sign of danger, which caused her to wake up. Emil took her in his arms and started walking towards the guest room that was Sven's when there were no guests, before changing his mind and taking her to his aunt and uncle's room. Lalli followed him there, holding the stuffed toy that he had forgotten to collect in his haste. Just a few seconds after retuning the toy to its rightful owner, Lalli got called by Helena, who used the handful of Norwegian words that he knew to mean that she was expecting him in the dreamspace as soon as he could get to bed.

The cure injection was to happen the next evening. It had been decided that Reynir would be the one to guide the boy, to help him be ready on the off-chance that he would ever have to do something similar for his own child. Helena also thought it would be a good idea for Lalli to be there when it happened, so he could get a glimpse of what they had had to deal with in Silent Denmark. Once they had made the finer arrangements for the following evening, Reynir breached a familiar conversation subject:  
-Lalli, I know you're still thinking it over, but would you mind at least telling me in which direction you're leaning right now? I'm going to see one of my brothers soon and I'd like to know if it's worth asking him or if I should only ask my sisters.  
It took that for him to find out that Reynir had actually had a vision telling him that things would work out if Lalli's seed was used, that he had told Tuuri and that he had assumed Tuuri had told Lalli when she had asked him for the favor. The look of resignation on Reynir's face somehow managed to worsen:  
-She's going to act like this with our child when… if we have one also, isn't she? I… need to talk to her tomorrow morning.  
Reynir ran out of Lalli's dream area, leaving Lalli's own feelings torn between "good, he finally noticed" and "is this one of those situations where I should have kept my mouth shut?".


	4. Keeping on moving

**Note:** The surname I chose for Sven means "porridge" in Swedish according to the site I used. Once I saw that and remembered how I introduced him in the first installment of this AU, my plans to at least try to give him something further down the alphabetical list of possible Swedish surnames went out the window. Also, the ending was written before the reveal of the whole body-sharing thing.

 **Keeping on moving**

Yet another thing not completely going as he had expected in this other reality he had created. This world's Lalli didn't understand Icelandic, but that didn't change the fact that _he_ did. The only positive aspect he could see right now in the argument he could hear from the hallway was that it had apparently started due to Reynir noticing a few things that would have certainly caused problems later if he and Tuuri weren't in the middle of addressing them.  
-You said you were going shopping this morning.  
The black-haired man with glasses, whom Lalli had assumed to be Torbjörn and Siv's house employee due to having so far seen him discreetly do various chores, had just addressed him in simple, yet correct Finnish.  
-I'm waiting for Emil.  
In reality, his Swedish was good enough for him to navigate Mora on his own, but Tuuri, Reynir and Helena were all here. Each of them knew both of the true nature of their reality and of his existence. They would catch on if he went out shopping on his own and got back _without_ getting in any kind of trouble. He couldn't ask Tuuri because it was for her birthday present, which meant he had to wait for Emil to come back from taking his daughter to school. The bespectacled black-haired man put his broom and apron away in the broom closet, went into the study, came out with a folder and a couple of typed manuscripts in his arms, and gave them to Lalli:  
-I need to take these to the shopping district. I was going to do it in the afternoon. I can come with you and do it now. Hold them and I'll put my coat and boots on.  
The other reason he had wanted to go with Emil had been to find out how he was doing in this world. Aside from arranging for when to go shopping over breakfast, all he'd seen of Emil's life in this reality was a family hug between him, Helena and Janine at Tuuri's twenty-sixth birthday party. This world's Lalli had been back in control of his own body by the time they had been properly introduced to each other.  
-I told Emil I'd wait for him.  
-He can always come look for us if these two are still arguing by the time he and Helena come back. Given the circumstances, they may actually be happy to have a little time for themselves.  
He unfortunately couldn't ask what, exactly, had happened without blowing his cover. All he knew was that this version of Mora was just out of the quarantine induced by the Year 96 beast intrusion; he guessed the finer details had diverged from those he had lived through himself, considering that half of the house's occupants had a different living situation in this reality. Lalli remembered the age and identity of the only person to catch the Rash because of the intrusion, and realized that Emil needing to take Janine to school in the first place meant she had to be at least… five. Oh dear. At least, this world's Janine was immune. Maybe it was a good idea to go shopping with this black-haired man after all.

The shopping went fairly quickly, so they dropped by the place the bespectacled black-haired man wanted to go. It was a small shop converted into something closer to an office with a handful of desks. Sven went to the one closest to the entrance and spoke to the woman sitting at the desk in Swedish:  
-Hello. I'm here to apply for that study of magic grant.  
-Considering the position of most people here towards magic, you'll understand we need proof that you actually intend to use the money to study magic in addition to the standard application.  
The bespectacled black-haired man dropped his papers on the desk:  
-I was on a mission with some mages right before the town got its beast problem. I had time to write the report in both Icelandic and Swedish during the quarantine. I'll understand if you can't read it immediately, but I'd like to know when I can come back with the knowledge the decision has been made.  
The woman picked up one of the manuscripts and looked at the first page skeptically:  
-Were you _really_ on a mission with Helena Västerström and Reynir Árnason?  
The bespectacled black-haired man sighed:  
-Please check author names before you read manuscripts. If you don't believe it's actually me, here's my identification card.  
He took his identification card out of his coat pocket and put it on the woman's desk:  
-I haven't been as fond of public attention as the others have been, but I can promise that I am one of the few people in this country who will actually use this grant for its intended purpose.  
The woman looked at the manuscript's cover with a raised eyebrow, then grew wide-eyed upon seeing the identification card.  
-I'm very sorry mister Breiner, but…  
-I completely understand the worries you have, this is why I went through the trouble of writing those reports. Do you need anything else?  
-Things are all right as far as I'm concerned, but I'd like to be able to answer the others if they ask the question. What about the third mage? This "Lalli Hotakainen"?  
Lalli replied with a cross "That's _me_ " in Swedish before he could start wondering whether he should have been able to understand any part of the question that wasn't his own name. That seemed to be enough to convince the woman.  
-We should reach a decision by next week. You may even be able to leave for your chosen destination on the first boat to go out once the weather is better.  
-Good, see you then.  
They both left the office. At least, Lalli knew the man's last name now. It actually sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. Strictly speaking, he should have returned to his own world and body now that the shopping was done. But he now wanted to know that man's full name to be able to track him down in his own world. If he stayed until they returned to the house, someone would possibly greet him using his first name. As they walked, Lalli figured out who the man probably was. He'd figured out that the scout on this reality's first Silent World expedition had been the woman he knew under the name of Helena Solberg in his own world, but hadn't figured out who the skald-mechanic could have been. Before Lalli quite noticed it, they had both started heading back to the house without consulting each other. The other man didn't try starting a conversation on the way back, and he didn't try to do so either. It was short, but extremely pleasant. The black-haired man stopped on his tracks soon after they entered the house's garden. On the front porch, Kitty and Misse were having a playful fight. Sigrun opened one of the front windows:  
-Sven, I hope you're not still afraid of cats after two expeditions in the Silent World.  
-Yes, I am. Can't you get them out of the way?  
-Nope, we have a betting pool going on the winner.  
This felt like the right time to return control to the Lalli who actually lived in this reality.

Helena hugged Reynir as the boy's spirit vanished. He had been given the medicine a week ago. If the Swedes hadn't been able to get rid of the secondary effect entirely, but they had managed to slow it down. They had managed to turn two to three days into a week. They were hoping for that week to eventually become a month, that month to become a year, that year to become a decade, that decade to become a lifetime. Lalli had seen what was happening to the boy's spirit, that had just left its body, somehow both vanishing and quickly becoming unable to leave on its own, simultaneously, at a staggering speed. His other self, this world's Helena, and the Reynir from both worlds had encountered what was left after ninety years of the phenomenon. The event made Lalli realize something: the chance of getting infected while non-immune compared to death by troll were the only concerns for _non-mage_ parents. If one or both parents were mages, the chance of the child getting infected was also a chance of having to be the one guiding them. He suddenly realized something. If the other world's Tuuri had died during its first Silent World expedition… before he could finish that thought, he heard a voice similar to his own in the back of his head, accompanied by the feeling of a memory coming back.  
- _I… have to stay. I need time some time to make sure… that… she didn't get lost.  
_ Next came deep sadness and a jumble of sounds, sounding vaguely like three different people speaking. Eventually, one comprehensible enough sentence came out of the jumble, clearly Swedish, clearly Emil's:  
- _I'll stay with him._  
Then nothing, aside from a lingering feeling of deep sadness. What had that been? It definitely wasn't something from his own past. This didn't keep the sadness from feeling real and requiring him to slip out of Helena and Reynir's sight before they noticed and tried to cheer them up.

-Everything seems fine. Cecilia, we'll see each other next month. Onni, I'd like to speak with you.  
Onni knew what was coming. It was yearly check-up time, which meant the doctor was about to give him the usual speech about how Lalli ate barely enough to make up for the energy he burned between meals and how little it left over for using his magic. As usual, he'd get Lalli to eat better for a span of time ranging between two weeks and a month, then he'd gradually slip back into his old habits. Cecilia left the room, and Onni took her place on the stool:  
-Get over with it, already.  
-Actually, what I have to tell you is different from the usual. Lalli has gained a little weight, and the right kind. However, he refused to tell me what, exactly, he had changed in his habits, so I was hoping you'd give me an answer.  
Onni told him how the Swede who had moved in a month ago to find more about how Finnish magic worked apparently had the same taste in food as Lalli and was willing to make enough for both of them for breakfast and dinner.  
-Ah, I remember him. He was almost as hard to examine as Lalli. Couldn't make a sudden move without risking an elbow in the ribs.

Sven looked at the steaming bowl Lalli was handing him with a raised eyebrow:  
-You… cooked?  
-I watched you enough times. You need to eat if you want to keep working on that tractor.  
Sven gave up, cleaned his hands as much as he could, took the bowl and came to sit next to Lalli on the nearby bench. Replacing that tractor would cost a small fortune if nobody managed to repair it. Because of this, everyone with even basic knowledge of mechanics had been asked to give it a look. A week in, all the other mechanics had either given up or were more than happy to let Sven take his time with it if it meant their own turn coming a little later. The problem was a well-known one, but the known possible causes had been ruled out by those who had taken a look before him. He ate the thick soup prepared by Lalli, which was more edible than he expected. He was hungry enough to finish the bowl. As he laid his eyes on Lalli, his mind shifted to the fact that mages could somehow tell whether people were immune just from looking at them, and to the thought he'd had while double-checking for the causes others had ruled out.  
-Lalli, did you ever notice something… different in the immunity of two people?  
-Why are you asking this? The other day, you said that it works the way it does because it always has the same cause.  
-For most of the world, it's always the same cause, I'm sure. I'm thinking some of you Finns could maybe have a different cause, that works the same way. It would explain some weird distributions of immunity some families here have. If I'm right, some of you can take part in Dagrenning, while others can't. But there is no easy way to tell the difference, because tests only check if people are immune or not. I was thinking that magic could help.  
Lalli took a few moments before answering:  
-So… if it's different, some would be immune like Emil, Helena and Janine, while others would be immune in a different way… somehow?  
-Yes.  
Lalli concentrated a few moments, his eyes closed, before opening them:  
-I think I see what you mean.  
Sven remembered to curb his enthusiasm until he made sure of a few things:  
-Which of the two would _you_ be, in that case?  
-The same as Emil.  
Lalli suddenly seemed to come to some kind of realization, and stared at him for a few moments, before going back to his meal. Sven's own mind started to think of various ways to make sure, and in the midst of them, realized this could mean that Lalli could not only give his seed for Tuuri's child if she and Reynir got their plans straightened out, but could actually have a way to prove to whoever asked that it was going to work. He still couldn't quite put a finger on what could have warranted Lalli staring at _him_ , however.

On the way to the old slaughterhouse, the sled had been filled with explosives. On the way back, it was filled with his unconscious husband. Emil was grateful for the sled, as he'd had to transport a magically spent Lalli in far more precarious conditions in the past. This time, at least, there was a conscious mage-scout in the group. Emil still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that Helena had been the one to get the vision of the slaughterhouse giant. She hadn't been on the first Silent World expedition, and her only connection to the crew was her friends-with-benefits arrangement with Reynir, that had mostly happened because that first night in 93 had resulted in a child. Rune-embroidered coats, that they were all wearing, were their only protection against trolls and beasts coming close enough to harm them. Emil wished they had a vehicle, but the unauthorized nature of the outing meant that having one would have required stealing one. All four of them had agreed that taking care of that giant before the next cleansing campaign of Mora's surroundings was more important than any negative consequences the mission could have upon their return.

Helena stopped walking, prompting Emil and Reynir to do the same.  
-Stay here.  
Helena disappeared into the trees of the cleansed forest they were currently crossing to reach Mora, then came back:  
-Reynir, bring Lalli to the train station and tell the people there that there are half a dozen non-immune civilians walking around without masks. Emil, I'll show you where they are. You're the only one here they may listen to.  
The more academic path Lalli had taken following Tuuri's death meant that Emil was the only actual member of the Swedish military in the group. Helena took him to a vantage point from which he could observe the civilian group, that seemed to be travelling away from Mora and carrying camping supplies. If they continued in their current direction, they would hit the Silent World before the end of the day. How had had they gotten into the cleansed forest? There were scouts on the borders between the farmland and the cleansed forest exactly to prevent that kind of situation, in addition to catching any beasts escaping the patrols inside the forest itself. He quickly realized they had to have prepared to an extent, because the path they seemed to be taking went through several seldom patrolled spots. He took his coat off so his field uniform would be visible, and showed himself to the group:  
-Cleanser Lieutenant Västerström from the Swedish army. Can I please know what the six of you are doing here?  
The entire group seemed very annoyed upon seeing him. The oldest of the women present spoke:  
-We are here because we know that whole Rash disease thing is fabrication to control the whereabouts of more than half the population! We know that this so-called "immunity" is nothing more than a seal of approval for liberty of movement! We are going to find out what you military people are hiding from us by keeping us inside walls!  
What? It took a few moments for Emil to process what he had just heard. How could anyone believe the Rash didn't exist?  
-You really picked the wrong target, ma'am. This guy actually had a crewmate come down with it once. For your own security, I advise you all to stay within the perimeter I set and cover your noses and mouths with any fabric you have at hand.  
Upon a quick glance at the ground, Emil saw that the hikers were now almost surrounded by pieces of his coat and Helena's, cut to keep the runes intact. Helena dropped one last piece of fabric between Emil and the hikers, completing the circle. She turned out to have done so just in time, as a clearly infected wolf turned out to have been attracted by the noise. The hikers had just enough time to see it run in Helena's direction before it got close enough to get within her tattooed backup defense rune's range, catch fire, and burn fast enough to become harmless before it could get any closer to the hikers. The scene seemed to be enough to convince the entire group to cover their face. A man and woman, who seemed to be a couple, spoke at the same time:  
-The tunnel!  
Emil did his best to stay calm:  
- _What_ tunnel?  
The couple explained how they had all come out there via digging a tunnel out of town. However, they had been so certain that beasts were a lie until a few moments ago that they hadn't put anything resembling a real door on either side of the tunnel. Now that they knew they were real, they were worried about them getting into town. They also admitted to having lied to the school upon enrolling their son, and to have passed him as immune when he actually wasn't. Emil let himself make a mess of the back of his hair, for the first time in a long time. This was going to be a long day.


End file.
